What were Suzanne Pleshette and the other women doing inside the prison? Why did the prison warden let them in? Conjugal visits are allowed and the (up to that point brutal) prison even provides the girls? What was up with all that?
shareConjugal visit means between married people or close partners and those gals were prostitutes I believe. I figured the warden in that poor rural swamp might have been giving "work" to those local women and attempting to release the tensions somewhat of the male prisoners he had to watch over.
shareThanks. And you're right about what "conjugal" means.
But that seems incredibly unrealistic to me and is a serious flaw in the script. I can't believe that's ever really been done.
Yeah maybe unrealistic, along with a few other things like McQueen playing a half-breed Indian! (-: Well personally the movie for me was a see-once type of thing and not exactly one of McQueen's best anyway.
shareRegarding "But that seems incredibly unrealistic to me and is a serious flaw in the script."
It was in the book.
Here is something I found:
Mississippi First to Begin Conjugal Visits, Latest to End Them
Loaded on Jan. 11, 2016 by David Reutter
Filed under: Extended Family Visiting. Location: Mississippi.
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After a century of using conjugal visits as prisoner –control practice, Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) Commissioner Christopher B. Epps has brought that privilege to an end. Only five states now allow conjugal visits.
In the Jim Crow days of the early 1900s, the warden of Parchman Farm, now the Mississippi State Prison, began the practice of conjugal visits. He hoped that sex would compel the mostly black prisoner population to work harder on the prison’s 1,600 acres of rich delta farmland. The warden allowed the prisoners time with spouses, or more often prostitutes, on Sunday. White prisoners were more likely to be participating by the 1940s.
You can read the rest of the article here
https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2016/jan/11/mississippi-first-begin-conjugal-visits-latest-end-them/
"Two more swords and I'll be Queen of the Monkey People." Roseanne
In the film it is explained that the warden "rents out" the prisoners as laborers during the rice harvest (and pockets the money, I'm sure). The women are obviously other hired laborers for the rice harvest, and they give themselves to the convicts because they are lonely for male company. Not all of them look like Suzanne Pleshette, just as not all of the convicts look like Steve McQueen.
shareYeah made no sense to me either. I've seen the film twice and the explanation of why they were let in was just confusing. I still don't know who was hiring who or if the Cajun women were supposed to be slaves or hookers or just plain horny!
shareHorny, slave or hooker Cajun women- does it have to make sense what's the problem? LOL
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